2. Length. Any length, any number of images and/or videos and/or audio files. We aren’t looking for a minimum number of words, nor do we have a maximum – but do remember that this is a site that updates daily and is usually read for a ‘quick fix'; we’ve had good responses to one-liners and to multi-part series, so use the length that is appropriate for the material.

3. Compensation. None. Right now we’re not paying anyone for content (yeah, that does suck) but on the other hand, let me tell you a quick story: “back in the day” I wrote for nearly everyone and got a premium rate for doing so. A relatively new publication approached me to write for them and, after they told me what their ridiculously way too low rates were, I turned down the offer. A couple of years later there was an industry tiff going on and I found myself unable to get anything about it into print (too hot to handle), so I went back to the aforementioned publisher and reminded them of their ‘we’ll publish anything legitimate’ policy. They ran my articles on the subject, which contributed greatly to winning that particular paintball battle. Same thing goes here. If it’s legitimate paintball news, we’ll run it – we don’t care who you are, what company you work for, how long you’ve been in the biz or what your point of view is.

Also – we’re happy to do other things in partial compensation for copy. Ask us about it and we’ll let you know.

4. Format. Please send articles as “RTF” formatted file attachments to emails – NOT in the body of the email. If you know what standard manuscript format is – by all means use it. If you don’t, don’t worry about it (or look it up and give it a whirl). Also, please – check your work and – no strange fonts, no strange background color schemes, or other embellishments.

Send pictures as JPG, TIF or GIF images. Our maximum picture width for display is 600 pixels, so there’s no point in sending anything larger. If you can’t re-size, just send it along and we’ll take care of it. No animations, please.

If your images illustrate your article in a specific way, please include a note to that effect (as in – stick captions on or with your images so we know what and who they show and have an idea of where they are supposed to go in the article. Something like: LtoR ‘Joe’, ‘Killer’ and ‘Mealymouth’ standing next to the prototype – fourth paragraph).

Links – make them “live” in your document, but also include a file of the links like this – name of the site being linked to – 68caliber.com; the link itself in standard format – http://www.68caliber.com.

5. Rights. All we are looking for is the right to put it on the website and keep it in our archives indefinately. You might call that ‘electronic serialization’ rights – but we also don’t have a problem if it appears elsewhere, or even it it has appeared somewhere else previously. If you only want us to archive it for a limited period of time, we can accomodate that also, so just ask at time of submission. If your articles/photos are copyrighted under a non-standard convention, such as Creative Commons, please let us know at time of submission. (Otherwise, we’ll assume that it is copyrighted conventionally, which any “work of art” automatically becomes once it is created.)

6. Where to sent it. editor@68caliber.com – pretty simple.

7. Legalities. We’re mot responsible for your point of view. If someone takes issue with it, we’ll send them along to you (unless of course we’ve endorsed what you wrote). Speaking of endorsement – unless otherwise stated, our publishing what you submit is NOT an automatic endorsement, approval or any thing else of that nature. All we are doing is providing the platform.

If you make assertions of fact that are not readily verifiable, we ask that you provide us with source(s) so that we can check them ourselves. If you make assertions of opinion – well, everyone has one, just like that body part.

We will not, however, allow submissions to substitute for personal attacks or other unacceptable behavior: if there is a great flame war going on somewhere and you write an engaging piece that covers it – informing everyone of the origins, the parties involved, etc., that’s one thing. But if you try to take sides and use 68Caliber to continue the war – we won’t print it.

We’re also not responsible if your materials get lost in transmission (make your own copies, please); nor can we do anything about other people copying your work off of 68Caliber and using or abusing it elsewhere. Hey – this is the internet!

6. Editing. You may think that your piece is perfect – but it may not be. For a variety of reasons – content, length, grammar, spelling, whatever – we may want to edit your piece. When we’ve done this previously, all of the authors have responded by saying that they felt their piece was improved (thanks guys!) but you may feel differently. We’re not editing for content, not trying to change your point of view, but we do want folks to read it and understand it. If you have an issue with us editing your piece prior to publication, let us know. We can arrange to make our edits and then send it back to you for review.